Ten weeks of qualifying are about to become one enormous online poker tournament.
The PokerStars Sunday Million 20th Anniversary reaches Phase 2 today, September 6, putting at least $5 million on the table as the surviving field finally comes together.
For PokerStars, the timing makes this more than an anniversary final. The tournament begins on the same Sunday as WCOOP 2026, placing two of the operator’s biggest online poker brands on the same schedule.
Poker Type has followed the field throughout the closing stages of qualification, including its surge beyond 1,400 players. Today, the focus finally moves away from who can get in and towards who can survive.
Sunday Million Phase 2 Starts at 15:05 ET
Phase 2 is scheduled to begin at 15:05 ET on Sunday, with the tournament continuing into Monday, September 7.
The final carries the same $109 nominal buy-in as the Phase 1 heats, but players reaching this point bring forward the chips they accumulated during qualification.
That makes today’s opening very different from a conventional Sunday Million.
Players will not all arrive with identical stacks. The work done during the summer-long first phase now matters, and the field that has gradually been assembled over ten weeks will finally occupy the same tournament.
| Sunday Million 20th Anniversary | Details |
|---|---|
| Phase 2 begins | September 6, 15:05 ET |
| Final day | September 7 |
| Guarantee | $5 million |
| Format | No-Limit Hold’em, phased |
| Phase 1 buy-in | $109 |
| Phase 1 period | June 28 to September 6 |
There is another unusual element to today’s schedule. PokerStars has not positioned its anniversary final on an otherwise quiet weekend.
It has dropped it directly into the opening day of WCOOP.
A $5M Sunday Million Lands in the Middle of WCOOP Day One
The 2026 WCOOP schedule begins earlier on Sunday, with the first events starting at 09:05 ET.
By the time the Sunday Million reaches Phase 2 at 15:05 ET, WCOOP players could already be juggling some serious tables.
The opening schedule includes a $5,200 World Championship of 6-Max with a $400,000 guarantee, alongside lower and medium-tier versions of the same event. PLO tournaments and progressive knockout events are also part of the first-day programme.
That creates an unusual Sunday for the professionals who have qualified for the anniversary event.
The Sunday Million may be the day’s biggest tournament by guarantee, but for some of its strongest players it will be one table in a much larger WCOOP session.
The anniversary tournament is technically listed alongside the opening WCOOP schedule as a $109 progressive knockout event, giving the first day of the championship an immediate $5 million centrepiece.
Spraggy, Marle Spragg and Sebastian Huber Have Something Else to Play For
Three PokerStars ambassadors enter the final with their communities attached to their runs.
Ben “Spraggy” Spragg, Marle Spragg and Sebastian “peace&loove” Huber have all qualified for Phase 2.
PokerStars has turned their progress into an Ambassador Last Longer competition.
Players can back one of the three ambassadors through separate $0.01 All-In Shootouts. The community supporting the ambassador who lasts longest will have a chance to win a $1,000 WCOOP Main Event Medium ticket.
It gives three individual tournament runs consequences beyond their own potential Sunday Million score.
Spraggy and Marle are also busy elsewhere on Sunday. Both have WCOOP Games “Centrolls” scheduled for 15:00 ET, just five minutes before the anniversary Phase 2 is due to begin, as they complete the process of building their community teams for the WCOOP Games.
For PokerStars’ streaming communities, Sunday therefore becomes a collision of the site’s anniversary tournament, the start of WCOOP and the final WCOOP Games draft day.
One Sunday, Two PokerStars Anniversaries
There is a neat symmetry to the timing.
The Sunday Million is celebrating its 20th anniversary while WCOOP is beginning its 25th edition.
Both competitions come from an earlier era of online poker, but both remain prominent enough in 2026 to occupy the same flagship Sunday.
Their formats now look very different.
WCOOP opens a 350-event championship spread across multiple buy-in levels and poker variants. The Sunday Million has spent the summer gradually assembling one giant field through repeated Phase 1 heats.
On September 6, those two approaches meet.
For players such as Spraggy, the overlap is literal. For recreational qualifiers, today’s tournament could instead be the only table that matters.
That contrast has always been part of the Sunday Million’s appeal. A major online professional playing a full championship schedule can find themselves competing for the same prize as somebody whose entire weekend revolves around one tournament.
The Qualification Story Ends Here
The size of the final field has been one of the developing stories around the anniversary tournament.
Poker Type first reported more than 1,000 qualifiers in late August before the number pushed beyond 1,400 during the final stretch.
That part of the story is effectively over.
The remaining Phase 1 opportunities close the door on a qualification campaign that began in June. Once Phase 2 gets underway, satellite prices, ticket promotions and the number of players making it through cease to be the important numbers.
Stacks, knockouts and the eventual prize pool take their place.
By Monday, the Sunday Million should have another champion.
This time, the winner will carry a title that PokerStars cannot award again: champion of the Sunday Million’s 20th anniversary.
